Gender Bender
by Miss-Blixed
Summary: Okay, so basically everythings changed. Harry's a girl, meet Hyspana. To make this slightly different i've changed the gender of every other charachter aswell.
1. Chapter 1

Heyah, haven't updated anything in ages since my laptop has crashed and therefore all my stories are gone. :(

Okay, so this story is called Gender Bender and is basically all the charachters turned into the opposite sex. Enjoy!

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><p><span>The Girl Who Lived<span>

Mrs. Evans was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills. She was a big, beefy woman with hardly any neck, although she did have a very large mole with a hair on it. Mr. Evans was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as he spent so much of his time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbours.

The Evans' had a small daughter called Divinity and in their opinion there was no finer girl anywhere.

The Evans' had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret, and their greatest fear was that somebody would discover it. They didn't think they could bear it if anyone found out about the other Evans.

The other Mr. Evans was Mr. Evans's brother, but they hadn't met for several years; in fact, Mr. Evans pretended he didn't have a brother, because his brother and his good-for-nothing wife were as unlike them as it was possible to be. The Evans' shuddered to think what the neighbours would say if they arrived in the street. The Evans' knew that they had a small daughter, too, but they had never even seen her. This girl was another good reason for keeping them away; they didn't want Divinity mixing with a child like that.

When Mr. and Mrs. Evans woke up on the dull, gray Tuesday our story starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country. Mrs. Evans hummed as she picked out her most frumpy skirt for work, and Mr. Evans gossiped away happily as he wrestled a screaming Divinity into her high chair. None of them noticed a large, tawny owl flutter past the window.

At half past eight, Mrs. Evans picked up her briefcase, pecked Mr. Evans on the cheek, and tried to kiss Divinity good-bye but missed, because Divinity was now having a tantrum and throwing her cereal at the walls.

"Little tyke," chortled Mrs. Evans as she left the house. She got into her car and backed out of number four's drive.

It was on the corner of the street that she noticed the first sign of something peculiar — a cat reading a map. For a second, Mrs. Evans didn't realize what she had seen — then she jerked her head around to look again. There was a tabby cat standing on the corner of Privet Drive, but there wasn't a map in sight. What could she have been thinking of? It must have been a trick of the light. Mrs. Evans blinked and stared at the cat. It stared back. As Mrs. Evans drove around the corner and up the road, she watched the cat in her mirror. It was now reading the sign that said Privet Drive — no, _looking _at the sign; cats couldn't read maps _or _signs.

Mrs. Evans gave herself a little shake and put the cat out of her mind. As she drove toward town she thought of nothing except a large order of drills she was hoping to get that day.

But on the edge of town, drills were driven out of her mind by something else. As she sat in the usual morning traffic jam, she couldn't help noticing that there seemed to be a lot of strangely dressed people about. People in cloaks. Mrs. Evans couldn't bear people who dressed in funny clothes — the getups you saw on young people! She supposed this was some stupid new fashion. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel and her eyes fell on a huddle of these weirdoes standing quite close by. They were whispering excitedly togethis.

Mrs. Evans was enraged to see that a couple of them weren't young at all; why, that woman had to be older than she was, and wearing an emerald-green cloak! The nerve of her! But then it struck Mrs. Evans that this was probably some silly stunt —these people were obviously collecting for something… yes, that would be it.

The traffic moved on and a few minutes later, Mrs. Evans arrived in the Grunnings parking lot, her mind back on drills.

Mrs. Evans always sat with her back to the window in her office on the ninth floor. If she hadn't, she might have found it harder to concentrate on drills that morning. _She _didn't see the owls swooping past in broad daylight, though people down in the street did; they pointed and gazed open-mouthed as owl after owl sped overhead.

Most of them had never seen an owl even at night time. Mrs. Evans, however, had a perfectly normal, owl-free morning. She yelled at five different people. She made several important telephone calls and shouted a bit more.

She was in a very good mood until lunchtime, when she thought she'd stretch her legs and walk across the road to buy herself a bun from the bakery.

She'd forgotten all about the people in cloaks until she passed a group of them next to the baker's. She eyed them angrily as she passed. She didn't know why, but they made her uneasy. This bunch were whispering excitedly, too, and she couldn't see a single collecting tin. It was on her way back past them, clutching a large doughnut in a bag, that she caught a few words of what they were saying.

"The Evans, that's right, that's what I heard —"

"— yes, their daughter, Hyspana —"

Mrs. Evans stopped dead. Fear flooded her. She looked back at the whisperers as if she wanted to say something to them, but thought better of it.

She dashed back across the road, hurried up to her office, snapped at her secretary not to disturb her, seized her telephone, and had almost finished dialling her home number when she changed her mind. She put the receiver back down and stroked her chin, thinking… no, she was being stupid.

Evans wasn't such an unusual name, there is also the Evans on the street round the corner from ours. She was sure there were lots of people called Evans who had a daughter called Hyspana. Come to think of it, she wasn't even sure her niece _was _called Hyspana. She'd never even seen the girl. It might have been Haley. Or Hannah. There was no point in worrying Mr. Evans; he always got so upset at any mention of his brother. She didn't blame him — if _she'd _had a brother like that… but all the same, those people in cloaks…

She found it a lot harder to concentrate on drills that afternoon and when she left the building at five o'clock, she was still so worried that she walked straight into someone just outside the door.

"Sorry," she grunted, as the tiny old woman stumbled and almost fell. It was a few seconds before Mrs. Evans realized that the woman was wearing a violet cloak. She didn't seem at all upset at being almost knocked to the ground. On the contrary, her face split into a wide smile and she said in a squeaky voice that made passersby stare, "Don't be sorry, my dear ma'am, for nothing could upset me today! Rejoice, for You-Know-Who has gone at last! Even Muggles like yourself should be celebrating, this happy, happy day!" And the old woman hugged Mrs. Evans around the middle and walked off.

Mrs. Evans stood rooted to the spot. She had been hugged by a complete stranger. She also thought she had been called a Muggle, whatever that was. She was rattled. She hurried to her car and set off for home, hoping she was imagining things, which she had never hoped before, because she didn't approve of imagination.

As she pulled into the driveway of number four, the first thing she saw—and it didn't improve her mood — was the tabby cat she'd spotted that morning. It was now sitting on her garden wall. She was sure it was the same one; it had the same markings around its eyes.

"Shoo!" said Mrs. Evans loudly.

The cat didn't move. It just gave her a stern look.

Was this normal cat behavior? Mrs. Evans wondered. Trying to pull herself togethis, she let herself into the house. Se was still determined not to mention anything to her husband.

Mr. Evans had had a nice, normal day. He told her over dinner all about Mr. Next Door's problems with her daughter and how Divinity had learned a new word ("Won't!"). Mrs. Evans tried to act normally. When Divinity had been put to bed, she went into the living room in time to catch the last report on the evening news:

"_And finally, bird-watchers everywhere have reported that the nation's owls have been behaving very unusually today. Although owls normally hunt at night and are hardly ever seen in daylight, there have been hundreds of sightings of these birds flying in every direction since sunrise. Experts are unable to explain why the owls have suddenly changed their sleeping pattern." The newscaster allowed herself a grin. "Most mysterious. And now, over to June McGuffin with the weathis. Going to be any more showers of owls tonight, June?" _

"_Well, Tari," said the weathiswoman, "I don't know about that, but it's not only the owls that have been acting oddly today. Viewers as far apart as Kent, Yorkshire, and Dundee have been phoning in to tell me that instead of the rain I promised yesterday, they've had a downpour of shooting stars! Perhaps people have been celebrating Bonfire Night early — it's not until next week, folks! But I can promise a wet night tonight." _

Mrs. Evans sat frozen in her armchair. Shooting stars all over Britain? Owls flying by daylight? Mysterious people in cloaks all over the place? And a wherper, a wherper about the Evans'…

Mr. Evans came into the living room carrying two cups of tea. It was no good. She'd have to say something to him. She cleared her throat nervously. "Er — Parker, dear — you haven't heard from your brother lately, have you?"

As she had expected, Mr. Evans looked shocked and angry. After all, they normally pretended he didn't have a brother.

"No," he said sharply. "Why?"

"Funny stuff on the news," Mrs. Evans mumbled. "Owls… shooting stars… and there were a lot of funny-looking people in town today…"

"_So?_" snapped Mr. Evans.

"Well, I just thought… maybe… it was something to do with… you know… _his _crowd."

Mr. Evans sipped his tea through pursed lips. Mrs. Evans wondered whether she dared tell him she'd heard the name "Evans." She decided she didn't dare. Instead she said, as casually as she could, "Their daughter — she'd be about Divinity's age now, wouldn't she?"

"I suppose so," said Mr. Evans stiffly.

"What's her name again? Holly, isn't it?"

"Hyspana. Nasty, common name, if you ask me."

"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Evans, her heart sinking horribly. "Yes, I quite agree."

She didn't say another word on the subject as they went upstairs to bed. While Mr. Evans was in the bathroom, Mrs. Evans crept to the bedroom window and peered down into the front garden. The cat was still there. It was staring down Privet Drive as though it were waiting for something.

Was she imagining things? Could all this have anything to do with the Evans'? If it did… if it got out that they were related to a pair of — well, she didn't think she could bear it.

The Evans' got into bed. Mr. Evans fell asleep quickly but Mrs. Evans lay awake, turning it all over in her mind. Her last, comforting thought before she fell asleep was that even if the Evans' _were _involved, there was no reason for them to come near her and Mr. Evans. The Evans' knew very well what she and Parker thought about them and their kind… She couldn't see how she and Parker could get mixed up in anything that might be going on — she yawned and turned over — it couldn't affect _them_…

How very wrong she was. Mrs. Evans might have been drifting into an uneasy sleep, but the cat on the wall outside was showing no sign of sleepiness. It was sitting as still as a statue, its eyes fixed unblinkingly on the far corner of Privet Drive. It didn't so much as quiver when a car door slammed on the next street, nor when two owls swooped overhead. In fact, it was nearly midnight before the cat moved at all.

A woman appeared on the corner the cat had been watching, appeared so suddenly and silently you'd have thought she'd just popped out of the ground. The cat's tail twitched and its eyes narrowed.

Nothing like this woman had ever been seen on Privet Drive. She was tall, thin, and very old, judging by the silver of her hair, which was long enough to tuck into her belt. She was wearing long robes, a purple cloak that swept the ground, and high-heeled, buckled boots. Her blue eyes were light, bright, and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles and her nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice. This woman's name was Adrian Dumbledore.

Adrian Dumbledore didn't seem to realize that she had just arrived in a street where everything from her name to her boots was unwelcome. She was busy rummaging in her cloak, looking for something. But she did seem to realize she was being watched, because she looked up suddenly at the cat, which was still staring at her from the other end of the street. For some reason, the sight of the cat seemed to amuse her. She chuckled and muttered, "I should have known."

She found what she was looking for in her inside pocket. It seemed to be a silver cigarette lighter. She flicked it open, held it up in the air, and clicked it. The nearest street lamp went out with a little pop. She clicked it again — the next lamp flickered into darkness. Twelve times she clicked the Put-Outer, until the only lights left on the whole street were two tiny pinpricks in the distance, which were the eyes of the cat watching her. If anyone looked out of their window now, even beady-eyed Mr. Evans, they wouldn't be able to see anything that was happening down on the pavement. Dumbledore slipped the Put-Outer back inside her cloak and set off down the street toward number four, where she sat down on the wall next to the cat. She didn't look at it, but after a moment she spoke to it.

"Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall." She turned to smile at the tabby, but it had gone. Instead she was smiling at a rather severe-looking man who was wearing square glasses exactly the shape of the markings the cat had, had around its eyes. He, too, was wearing a cloak, an emerald one. His black hair was drawn into tight braids at the nape of his neck. He looked distinctly ruffled. "How did you know it was me?" he asked.

"My dear Professor, I've never seen a cat sit so stiffly."

"You'd be stiff if you'd been sitting on a brick wall all day," said Professor McGonagall.

"All day? When you could have been celebrating? I must have passed a dozen feasts and parties on my way here."

Professor McGonagall sniffed angrily. "Oh yes, everyone's celebrating, all right," he said impatiently. "You'd think they'd be a bit more careful, but no — even the Muggles have noticed something's going on. It was on their news." He jerked his head back at the Evans' dark living-room window. "I heard it. Flocks of owls… shooting stars… Well, they're not completely stupid. They were bound to notice something. Shooting stars down in Kent — I'll bet that was Diana Diggle. He never had much sense."

"You can't blame them," said Dumbledore gently. "We've had precious little to celebrate for eleven years."

"I know that," said Professor McGonagall irritably. "But that's no reason to lose our heads. People are being downright careless, out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in Muggle clothes, swapping rumors." He threw a sharp, sideways glance at Dumbledore here, as though hoping she was going to tell her something, but she didn't, so he went on. "A fine thing it would be if, on the very day You-Know-Who seems to have disappeared at last, the Muggles found out about us all. I suppose she really _has _gone, Dumbledore?"

"It certainly seems so," said Dumbledore. "We have much to be thankful for. Would you care for a lemon drop?"

"A _what_?"

"A lemon drop. They're a kind of Muggle sweet I'm rather fond of."

"No, thank you," said Professor McGonagall coldly, as though he didn't think this was the moment for lemon drops. "As I say, even if You-Know-Who _has _gone —"

"My dear Professor, surely a sensible person like yourself can call her by her name? All this 'You-Know-Who' nonsense — for eleven years I have been trying to persuade people to call her by her proper name: _Voldemort_."

Professor McGonagall flinched, but Dumbledore, who was unsticking two lemon drops, seemed not to notice. "It all gets so confusing if we keep saying 'You-Know-Who.' I have never seen any reason to be frightened of saying Voldemort's name."

"I know you haven't," said Professor McGonagall, sounding half exasperated, half admiring. "But you're different. Everyone knows you're the only one You-Know- oh, all right, _Voldemort_, was frightened of."

"You flatter me," said Dumbledore calmly. "Voldemort had powers I will never have."

"Only because you're too — well —_noble _to use them."

"It's lucky it's dark. I haven't blushed so much since Monsieur Pomfrey told me he liked my new earmuffs."

Professor McGonagall shot a sharp look at Dumbledore and said, "The owls are nothing next to the _rumors _that are flying around. You know what they're saying? About why she's disappeared? About what finally stopped her?"

It seemed that Professor McGonagall had reached the point he was most anxious to discuss, the real reason he had been waiting on a cold, hard wall all day, for neither as a cat nor as a woman had he fixed Dumbledore with such a piercing stare as he did now. It was plain that whatever "everyone" was saying, he was not going to believe it until Dumbledore told him it was true. Dumbledore, however, was choosing another lemon drop and did not answer.

"What they're _saying_," he pressed on, "is that last night Voldemort turned up in Godric's Hollow. He went to find the Evans'. The rumor is that Lewis and Jasmine Evans are — are — that they're — _dead_."

Dumbledore bowed her head. Professor McGonagall gasped.

"Lewis and Jasmine… I can't believe it… I didn't want to believe it… Oh, Adrian…"

Dumbledore reached out and patted him on the shoulder. "I know… I know…" she said heavily.

Professor McGonagall's voice trembled as he went on. "That's not all. They're saying she tried to kill the Evans's daughter, Hyspana. But she couldn't. She couldn't kill that little girl. No one knows why, or how, but they're saying that when she couldn't kill Hyspana Evans, Voldemort's power somehow broke — and that's why she's gone."

Dumbledore nodded glumly.

"It's — it's _true_?" faltered Professor McGonagall. "After all she's done… all the people she's killed… she couldn't kill a little girl? It's just astounding… of all the things to stop her… but how in the name of heaven did Hyspana survive?"

"We can only guess." said Dumbledore. "We may never know."

Professor McGonagall pulled out a lace handkerchief and dabbed at his eyes beneath his spectacles. Dumbledore gave a great sniff as she took a golden watch from her pocket and examined it. It was a very odd watch. It had twelve hands but no numbers; instead, little planets were moving around the edge. It must have made sense to Dumbledore, though, because she put it back in her pocket and said, "Hagrid's late. I suppose it was she who told you I'd be here, by the way?"

"Yes," said Professor McGonagall. "And I don't suppose you're going to tell me _why _you're here, of all places?"

"I've come to bring Hyspana to her aunt and uncle. They're the only family she has left now."

"You don't mean – you _can't _mean the people who live _here_?" cried Professor McGonagall, jumping to his feet and pointing at number four. "Dumbledore — you can't. I've been watching them all day. You couldn't find two people who are less like us. And they've got this daughter — I saw her kicking her mother all the way up the street, screaming for sweets. Hyspana Evans come and live here!"

"It's the best place for her," said Dumbledore firmly. "Her aunt and uncle will be able to explain everything to her when she's older. I've written them a letter."

"A letter?" repeated Professor McGonagall faintly, sitting back down on the wall. "Really, Dumbledore, you think you can explain all this in a letter? These people will never understand her! She'll be famous — a legend — I wouldn't be surprised if today was known as Hyspana Evans day in the future — there will be books written about Hyspana — every child in our world will know her name!"

"Exactly." said Dumbledore, looking very seriously over the top of her half-moon glasses. "It would be enough to turn any girl's head. Famous before she can walk and talk! Famous for something she won't even remember! Can you see how much better off she'll be, growing up away from all that until she's ready to take it?"

Professor McGonagall opened his mouth, changed his mind, swallowed, and then said, "Yes — yes, you're right, of course. But how is the girl getting here, Dumbledore?" She eyed her cloak suddenly as though he thought she might be hiding Hyspana underneath it.

"Hagrid's bringing her."

"You think it —_wise _— to trust Hagrid with something as important as this?"

"I would trust Hagrid with my life," said Dumbledore.

"I'm not saying her heart isn't in the right place," said Professor McGonagall grudgingly, "but you can't pretend she's not careless. She does tend to — what was that?"

A low rumbling sound had broken the silence around them. It grew steadily louder as they looked up and down the street for some sign of a headlight; it swelled to a roar as they both looked up at the sky — and a huge motorcycle fell out of the air and landed on the road in front of them.

If the motorcycle was huge, it was nothing to the woman sitting astride it. She was almost twice as tall as a normal woman and at least five times as wide. She looked simply too big to be allowed, and so _wild _— long tangles of bushy black hair hid most of her face, she had hands the size of trash can lids, and her feet in their leather boots were like baby dolphins. In her vast, muscular arms she was holding a bundle of blankets.

"Hagrid," said Dumbledore, sounding relieved. "At last. And where did you get that motorcycle?"

"Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, ma'am," said the giant, climbing carefully off the motorcycle as she spoke. "Young Sirius Black lent it to me. I've got her, ma'am."

"No problems, were there?"

"No, ma'am — house was almost destroyed, but I got her out all right before the Muggles started swarmin' around. She fell asleep as we was flyin' over Bristol."

Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall bent forward over the bundle of blankets. Inside, just visible, was a baby girl, fast asleep. Under a tuft of jet-black hair over her forehead they could see a curiously shaped cut, like a bolt of lightning.

"Is that where —?" wherpered Professor McGonagall.

"Yes," said Dumbledore. "She'll have that scar forever."

"Couldn't you do something about it, Dumbledore?"

"Even if I could, I wouldn't. Scars can come in handy. I have one myself above my left knee that is a perfect map of the London Underground. Well — give her here, Hagrid — we'd better get this over with."

Dumbledore took Hyspana in her arms and turned toward the Evans' house.

"Could I — could I say good-bye to her, ma'am?" asked Hagrid. She bent her great, shaggy head over Hyspana and gave her a kiss. Then, suddenly, Hagrid let out a howl like a wounded dog.

"Shhh!" hersed Professor McGonagall, "You'll wake the Muggles!"

"S-s-sorry," sobbed Hagrid, taking out a large, spotted handkerchief and burying her face in it. "But I c-c-can't stand it —Lewis an' Jasmine dead — an' poor little Hyspana off ter live with Muggles —"

"Yes, yes, it's all very sad, but get a grip on yourself, Hagrid, or we'll be found," Professor McGonagall whispered, patting Hagrid gingerly on the arm as Dumbledore stepped over the low garden wall and walked to the front door. She laid Hyspana gently on the doorstep, took a letter out of her cloak, tucked it inside Hyspana's blankets, and then came back to the other two.

For a full minute the three of them stood and looked at the little bundle; Hagrid's shoulders shook, Professor McGonagall blinked furiously, and the twinkling light that usually shone from Dumbledore's eyes seemed to have gone out.

"Well," said Dumbledore finally, "that's that. We've no business staying here. We may as well go and join the celebrations."

"Yeah," said Hagrid in a very muffled voice, "I best get this bike away. G'night, Professor McGonagall — Professor Dumbledore, ma'am."

Wiping her streaming eyes on her jacket sleeve, Hagrid swung herself onto the motorcycle and kicked the engine into life; with a roar it rose into the air and off into the night.

"I shall see you soon, I expect, Professor McGonagall," said Dumbledore, nodding to her. Professor McGonagall blew her nose in reply.

Dumbledore turned and walked back down the street. On the corner she stopped and took out the silver Put-Outer. She clicked it once, and twelve balls of light sped back to their street lamps so that Privet Drive glowed suddenly orange and she could make out a tabby cat slinking around the corner at the other end of the street. She could just see the bundle of blankets on the step of number four.

"Good luck, Hyspana," she murmured. She turned on her heel and with a swish of her cloak, she was gone.

A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Hyspana Evans rolled over inside her blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside her and she slept on, not knowing she was special, not knowing she was famous, not knowing she would be woken in a few hours' time by Mr. Evans's scream as he opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that she would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by her cousin Divinity… She couldn't know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: "To Hyspana Evans — the girl who lived!"

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><p>hope you enjoyed it. let me know what you think!<p>

bekah xx


	2. Chapter 2

heyah, that's the second chapter up now, Enjoy!

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><p>The Vanishing Glass<p>

Nearly ten years had passed since the Evans' had woken up to find their niece on the front step, but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all. The sun rose on the same tidy front gardens and lit up the brass number four on the Evans' front door; it crept into their living room, which was almost exactly the same as it had been on the night when Mrs. Evans had seen that fateful news report about the owls. Only the photographs on the mantelpiece really showed how much time had passed. Ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink beach ball wearing different-coloured bonnets — but Divinity Evans was no longer a baby, and now the photographs showed a large blond girl riding her first bicycle, on a carousel at the fair, playing a computer game with her father, being hugged and kissed by her mother. The room held no sign at all that another girl lived in the house, too.

Yet Hyspana Evans was still there, asleep at the moment, but not for long. Her Uncle Parker was awake and it was his shrill voice that made the first noise of the day.

"Up! Get up! Now!"

Hyspana woke with a start. Her uncle rapped on the door again.

"Up!" he screeched. Hyspana heard him walking toward the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the stove. She rolled onto her back and tried to remember the dream she had been having. It had been a good one. There had been a flying motorcycle in it. She had a funny feeling she'd had the same dream before.

Her uncle was back outside the door.

"Are you up yet?" he demanded.

"Nearly," said Hyspana.

"Well, get a move on, I want you to look after the bacon. And don't you dare let it burn, I want everything perfect on Divinity's birthday."

Hyspana groaned.

"What did you say?" his uncle snapped through the door.

"Nothing, nothing…"

Divinity's birthday — how could she have forgotten? Hyspana got slowly out of bed and started looking for socks. She found a pair under her bed and, after pulling a spider off one of them, put them on. Hyspana was used to spiders, because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where she slept.

When she was dressed she went down the hall into the kitchen. The table was almost hidden beneath all Divinity's birthday presents. It looked as though Divinity had gotten the new computer she wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing bike. Exactly why Divinity wanted a racing bike was a mystery to Hyspana, as Divinity was very fat and hated exercise — unless of course it involved punching somebody. Divinity's favorite punching bag was Hyspana, but she couldn't often catch her. Hyspana didn't look it, but she was very fast.

Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard, but Hyspana had always been small and skinny for her age.

She looked even smaller and skinnier than she really was because all she had to wear were old clothes of Divinity's, and Divinity was about four times bigger than she was. Hyspana had a thin face, knobby knees, black hair, and bright green eyes. He wore round glasses held together with a lot of Scotch tape because of all the times Divinity had punched her on the nose. The only thing Hyspana liked about her own appearance was a very thin scar on her forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning.

She had had it as long as she could remember, and the first question she could ever remember asking her Uncle Parker was how she had gotten it.

"In the car crash when your parents died," he had said. "And don't ask questions."

Don't ask questions — that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Evans'.

Aunt Venus entered the kitchen as Hyspana was turning over the bacon.

"Comb your hair!" she barked, by way of a morning greeting. About once a week, Aunt Venus looked over the top of her newspaper and shouted that Hyspana needed a haircut. Hyspana must have had more haircuts than the rest of the girls in her class put together, but it made no difference, her hair simply grew that way — all over the place.

Hyspana was frying eggs by the time Divinity arrived in the kitchen with her father. Divinity looked a lot like Aunt Venus. She had a large pink face, not much neck, small, watery blue eyes, and thick blond hair that lay smoothly on her thick, fat head.

Uncle Parker often said that Divinity looked like a baby angel — Hyspana often said that Divinity looked like a pig in a wig.

Hyspana put the plates of egg and bacon on the table, which was difficult as there wasn't much room. Divinity, meanwhile, was counting her presents. Her face fell.

"Thirty-six," she said, looking up at her mother and father. "That's two less than last year."

"Darling, you haven't counted Uncle Martin's present, see, it's here under this big one from Mummy and Daddy."

"All right, thirty-seven then," said Divinity, going red in the face. Hyspana, who could see a huge Divinity tantrum coming on, began wolfing down her bacon as fast as possible in case Divinity turned the table over.

Uncle Parker obviously scented danger, too, because he said quickly, "And we'll buy you another two presents while we're out today. How's that, popkin? Two more presents. Is that all right?"

Divinity thought for a moment. It looked like hard work. Finally she said slowly, "So I'll have thirty… thirty…"

"Thirty-nine, sweetums," said Uncle Parker.

"Oh." Divinity sat down heavily and grabbed the nearest parcel. "All right then."

Aunt Venus chuckled. "Little tyke wants her money's worth, just like her mother. 'Atta girl, Divinity!" She ruffled Divinity's hair.

At that moment the telephone rang and Uncle Parker went to answer it while Hyspana and Aunt Venus watched Divinity unwrap the racing bike, a video camera, a remote control Barbie car, sixteen new computer games, and a VCR.

She was ripping the paper off a gold wristwatch when Uncle Parker came back from the telephone looking both angry and worried.

"Bad news, Venus," she said. "Mr. Figg's broken his leg. He can't take her."

He jerked his head in Hyspana's direction.

Divinity's mouth fell open in horror, but Hyspana's heart gave a leap. Every year on Divinity's birthday, her parents took her and a friend out for the day, to adventure parks, hamburger restaurants, or the movies. Every year, Hyspana was left behind with Mr. Figg, a mad old man who lived two streets away. Hyspana hated it there. The whole house smelled of cabbage and Mr. Figg made her look at photographs of all the cats he'd ever owned.

"Now what?" said Uncle Parker, looking furiously at Hyspana as though she'd planned this. Hyspana knew she ought to feel sorry that Mr. Figg had broken his leg, but it wasn't easy when she reminded herself it would be a whole year before she had to look at Tibbles, Snowy, Mr. Paws, and Tufty again.

"We could phone Martin," Aunt Venus suggested.

"Don't be silly, Venus, he hates the girl."

The Evans' often spoke about Hyspana like this, as though she wasn't there — or rather, as though she was something very nasty that couldn't understand them, like a slug.

"What about what's-her-name, your friend — Yvon?"

"On vacation in Majorca," snapped Uncle Parker.

"You could just leave me here," Hyspana put in hopefully (she'd be able to watch what she wanted on television for a change and maybe even have a go on Divinity's computer).

Uncle Parker looked as though he'd just swallowed a lemon.

"And come back and find the house in ruins?" he snarled.

"I won't blow up the house," said Hyspana, but they weren't listening.

"I suppose we could take her to the zoo," said Uncle Parker slowly, "… and leave her in the car…"

"That car's new, she's not sitting in it alone…"

Divinity began to cry loudly. In fact, she wasn't really crying — it had been years since she'd really cried — but she knew that if she screwed up her face and wailed, her mother would give her anything she wanted.

"Dinky Divvydums, don't cry, Mummy won't let her spoil your special day!" she cried, flinging her arms around her.

"I… don't… want… her… t-t-to come!" Divinity yelled between huge, pretend sobs. "She always sp-spoils everything!" She shot Hyspana a nasty grin through the gap in her mother's arms.

Just then, the doorbell rang — "Oh, good Lord, they're here!" said Uncle Parker frantically — and a moment later, Divinity's best friend, Paige Polkiss, walked in with her mother.

Paige was a scrawny girl with a face like a rat. She was usually the one who held people's arms behind their backs while Divinity hit them. Divinity stopped pretending to cry at once.

Half an hour later, Hyspana, who couldn't believe her luck, was sitting in the back of the Evans' car with Paige and Divinity, on the way to the zoo for the first time in her life. Her aunt and uncle hadn't been able to think of anything else to do with her, but before they'd left, Aunt Venus had taken Hyspana aside.

"I'm warning you," she had said, putting her large purple face right up close to Hyspana's, "I'm warning you now, girl — any funny business, anything at all — and you'll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas."

"I'm not going to do anything," said Hyspana, "honestly…"

But Aunt Venus didn't believe her. No one ever did.

The problem was, strange things often happened around Hyspana and it was just no good telling the Evans' she didn't make them happen.

Once, Uncle Parker, tired of Hyspana coming back from the hairdressers looking as though she hadn't been at all, had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut her hair so short she was almost bald except for her bangs, which she left "to hide that horrible scar." Divinity had laughed herself silly at Hyspana, who spent a sleepless night imagining school the next day, where she was already laughed at for her baggy clothes and taped glasses.

Next morning, however, she had gotten up to find her hair exactly as it had been before Uncle Parker had sheared it off. She had been given a week in her cupboard for this, even though she had tried to explain that she couldn't explain how it had grown back so quickly.

Another time, Uncle Parker had been trying to force her into a revolting old sweater of Divinity's (brown with orange puff balls). The harder she tried to pull it over her head, the smaller it seemed to become, until finally it might have fitted a hand puppet, but certainly wouldn't fit Hyspana. Uncle Parker had decided it must have shrunk in the wash and, to her great relief, Hyspana wasn't punished.

On the other hand, she'd gotten into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the school kitchens. Divinity's gang had been chasing her as usual when, as much to Hyspana's surprise as anyone else's, there she was sitting on the chimney.

The Evans' had received a very angry letter from Hyspana's headmistress telling them Hyspana had been climbing school buildings. But all she'd tried to do (as she shouted at Aunt Venus through the locked door of her cupboard) was jump behind the big trashcans outside the kitchen doors. Hyspana supposed that the wind must have caught her in mid-jump.

But today, nothing was going to go wrong. It was even worth being with Divinity and Paige to be spending the day somewhere that wasn't school, her cupboard, or Mr. Figg's cabbage-smelling living room.

While she drove, Aunt Venus complained to Uncle Parker. She liked to complain about things: people at work, Hyspana, the council, Hyspana, the bank, and Hyspana were just a few of her favorite subjects. This morning, it was motorcycles.

"…roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums," she said, as a motorcycle overtook them.

"I had a dream about a motorcycle," said Hyspana, remembering suddenly. "It was flying."

Aunt Venus nearly crashed into the car in front. She turned right around in her seat and yelled at Hyspana, her face like a gigantic beet with a mole: "MOTORCYCLES DON'T FLY!"

Divinity and Paige sniggered.

"I know they don't," said Hyspana. "It was only a dream."

But she wished she hadn't said anything. If there was one thing the Evans' hated even more than her asking questions, it was her talking about anything acting in a way it shouldn't, no matter if it was in a dream or even a cartoon — they seemed to think she might get dangerous ideas.

It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families. The Evans' bought Divinity and Paige large chocolate ice creams at the entrance and then, because the smiling lady in the van had asked Hyspana what she wanted before they could hurry her away, they bought her a cheap lemon ice pop.

It wasn't bad, either, Hyspana thought, licking it as they watched a gorilla scratching its head who looked remarkably like Divinity, except that it wasn't blond.

Hyspana had the best morning she'd had in a long time. She was careful to walk a little way apart from the Evans' so that Divinity and Paige, who were starting to get bored with the animals by lunchtime, wouldn't fall back on their favorite hobby of hitting her.

They ate in the zoo restaurant, and when Divinity had a tantrum because her knickerbocker glory didn't have enough ice cream on top, Aunt Venus bought her another one and Hyspana was allowed to finish the first.

Hyspana felt, afterward, that she should have known it was all too good to last.

After lunch they went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark in there, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithising over bits of wood and stone. Divinity and Paige wanted to see huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons. Divinity quickly found the largest snake in the place. It could have wrapped its body twice around Aunt Venus's car and crushed it into a trash can — but at the moment it didn't look in the mood. In fact, it was fast asleep.

Divinity stood with her nose pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening brown coils.

"Make it move," she whined at her fathis. Aunt Venus tapped on the glass, but the snake didn't budge.

"Do it again," Divinity ordered. Aunt Venus rapped the glass smartly with her knuckles, but the snake just snoozed on.

"This is boring," Divinity moaned. She shuffled away.

Hyspana moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. She wouldn't have been surprised if it had died of boredom itself — no company except stupid people drumming their fingers on the glass trying to disturb it all day long. It was worse than having a cupboard as a bedroom, where the only visitor was Uncle Parker hammering on the door to wake you up; at least he got to visit the rest of the house.

The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Hyspana's.

It winked.

Hyspana stared. Then he looked quickly around to see if anyone was watching. They weren't. She looked back at the snake and winked, too.

The snake jerked its head toward Aunt Venus and Divinity, then raised its eyes to the ceiling. It gave Hyspana a look that said quite plainly:

"I get that all the time."

"I know," Hyspana murmured through the glass, though she wasn't sure the snake could hear her. "It must be really annoying."

The snake nodded vigorously.

"Where do you come from, anyway?" Hyspana asked.

The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Hyspana peered at it.

Boa Constrictor, Brazil.

"Was it nice there?"

The boa constrictor jabbed its tail at the sign again and Hyspana read on: This specimen was bred in the zoo. "Oh, I see — so you've never been to Brazil?"

As the snake shook its head, a deafening shout behind Hyspana made both of them jump. "DIVINITY! MRS. EVANS! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!"

Divinity came waddling toward them as fast as he could.

"Out of the way, you," she said, punching Hyspana in the ribs. Caught by surprise, Hyspana fell hard on the concrete floor.

What came next happened so fast no one saw how it happened — one second, Paige and Divinity were leaning right up close to the glass, the next, they had leapt back with howls of horror.

Hyspana sat up and gasped; the glass front of the boa constrictor's tank had vanished.

The great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly, slithising out onto the floor. People throughout the reptile house screamed and started running for the exits.

As the snake slid swiftly past her, Hyspana could have sworn a low, hersing voice said, "Brazil, here I come… Thanksss, amiga."

The keeper of the reptile house was in shock.

"But the glass," she kept saying, "where did the glass go?"

The zoo director herself made Uncle Parker a cup of strong, sweet tea while she apologized over and over again. Paige and Divinity could only gibber. As far as Hyspana had seen, the snake hadn't done anything except snap playfully at their heels as it passed, but by the time they were all back in Aunt Venus's car, Divinity was telling them how it had nearly bitten off her leg, while Paige was swearing it had tried to squeeze her to death. But worst of all, for Hyspana at least, was Paige calming down enough to say, "Hyspana was talking to it, weren't you, Hyspana?".

Aunt Venus waited until Paige was safely out of the house before starting on Hyspana. She was so angry she could hardly speak. She managed to say, "Go — cupboard — stay — no meals," before she collapsed into a chair, and Uncle Parker had to run and get her a large brandy.

Hyspana lay in her dark cupboard much later, wishing she had a watch. She didn't know what time it was and she couldn't be sure the Evans' were asleep yet. Until they were, she couldn't risk sneaking to the kitchen for some food.

She'd lived with the Evans' almost ten years, ten miserable years, as long as she could remember, ever since she'd been a baby and her parents had died in that car crash. She couldn't remember being in the car when her parents had died. Sometimes, when she strained her memory during long hours in her cupboard, she came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burning pain on her forehead.

This, she supposed, was the crash, though she couldn't imagine where all the green light came from. She couldn't remember her parents at all.

Her aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course she was forbidden to ask questions. There were no photographs of them in the house.

When she had been younger, Hyspana had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take her away, but it had never happened; the Evans' were her only family. Yet sometimes she thought (or maybe hoped) that strangers in the street seemed to know her. Very strange strangers they were, too.

A tiny woman in a violet top hat had bowed to her once while out shopping with Uncle Parker and Divinity. After asking Hyspana furiously if she knew the woman, Uncle Parker had rushed them out of the shop without buying anything. A wild-looking old man dressed all in green had waved merrily at her once on a bus. A bald man in a very long purple coat had actually shaken her hand in the street the other day and then walked away without a word. The weirdest thing about all these people was the way they seemed to vanish the second Hyspana tried to get a closer look.

At school, Hyspana had no one. Everybody knew that Divinity's gang hated that odd Hyspana Evans in her baggy old clothes and broken glasses, and nobody liked to disagree with Divinity's gang.

* * *

><p>thanks for reading again.<p>

bekah xx**  
><strong>


	3. Chapter 3

third chapter, enjoy.

i just noticed that i've been forgetting the disclaimer. sorry.

DISCLAIMER: i don't own the harry potter world or anything in it apart from the names of the charachters.

* * *

><p>Letters From No One<p>

The escape of the Brazilian boa constrictor earned Hyspana her longest-ever punishment. By the time she was allowed out of her cupboard again, the summer holidays had started and Divinity had already broken her new video camera, crashed her remote control airplane, and, first time out on her racing bike, knocked down old Mr. Figg as he crossed Privet Drive on his crutches.

Hyspana was glad school was over, but there was no escaping Divinity's gang, who visited the house every single day. Paige, Danielle, Melanie, and Georgia were all big and stupid, but as Divinity was the biggest and stupidest of the lot, she was the leader.

The rest of them were all quite happy to join in Divinity's favorite sport: Hyspana Hunting.

This was why Hyspana spent as much time as possible out of the house, wandering around and thinking about the end of the holidays, where she could see a tiny ray of hope. When September came she would be going off to secondary school and, for the first time in her life, she wouldn't be with Divinity. Divinity had been accepted at Aunt Venus's old private school, Smeltings. Paige Polkiss was going there too. Hyspana, on the other hand, was going to Stonewall High, the local public school. Divinity thought this was very funny.

"They stuff people's heads down the toilet the first day at Stonewall," she told Hyspana. "Want to come upstairs and practice?"

"No, thanks," said Hyspana. "The poor toilet's never had anything as horrible as your head down it — it might be sick." Then she ran, before Divinity could work out what she'd said.

One day in July, Uncle Parker took Divinity to London to buy her Smeltings uniform, leaving Hyspana at Mr. Figg's.

Mr. Figg wasn't as bad as usual. It turned out he'd broken his leg tripping over one of his cats, and he didn't seem quite as fond of them as before. He let Hyspana watch television and gave him a bit of chocolate cake that tasted as though he'd had it for several years.

That evening, Divinity paraded around the living room for the family in her brand-new uniform. Smeltings' girls wore maroon tailcoats, orange knickerbockers, and flat straw hats called boaters. They also carried knobbly sticks, used for hitting each other while the teachers weren't looking. This was supposed to be good training for later life.

As she looked at Divinity in her new knickerbockers, Aunt Venus said gruffly that it was the proudest moment of her life. Uncle Parker burst into tears and said he couldn't believe it was her Ickle Divinitykins, she looked so pretty and grown-up. Hyspana didn't trust herself to speak. She thought two of her ribs might already have cracked from trying not to laugh.

There was a horrible smell in the kitchen the next morning when Hyspana went in for breakfast. It seemed to be coming from a large metal tub in the sink. She went to have a look. The tub was full of what looked like dirty rags swimming in gray water.

"What's this?" she asked Uncle Parker. His lips tightened as they always did if he dared to ask a question.

"Your new school uniform," he said.

Hyspana looked in the bowl again.

"Oh," she said, "I didn't realize it had to be so wet."

"Don't be stupid," snapped Uncle Parker. "I'm dyeing some of Divinity's old things gray for you. It'll look just like everyone else's when I've finished."

Hyspana seriously doubted this, but thought it best not to argue.

She sat down at the table and tried not to think about how she was going to look on her first day at Stonewall High — like she was wearing bits of old elephant skin, probably.

Divinity and Aunt Venus came in, both with wrinkled noses because of the smell from Hyspana's new uniform. Aunt Venus opened her newspaper as usual and Divinity banged her Smelting stick, which she carried everywhere, on the table.

They heard the click of the mail slot and flop of letters on the doormat.

"Get the mail, Divinity," said Aunt Venus from behind her paper.

"Make Hyspana get it."

"Get the mail, Hyspana."

"Make Divinity get it."

"Poke her with your Smelting stick, Divinity."

Hyspana dodged the Smelting stick and went to get the mail. Three things lay on the doormat: a postcard from Aunt Venus's sister Marge, who was vacationing on the Isle of Wight, a brown envelope that looked like a bill, and — _a letter for Hyspana_.

Hyspana picked it up and stared at it, her heart twanging like a giant elastic band. No one, ever, in her whole life, had written to her. Who would? She had no friends, no other relatives — she didn't belong to the library, so she'd never even got rude notes asking for books back. Yet here it was, a letter, addressed so plainly there could be no mistake:

_Miss. H. Evans_

_The Cupboard under the Stairs _

_4 Privet Drive_

_Little Whinging_

_Surrey_

The envelope was thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the address was written in emerald-green ink.

There was no stamp.

Turning the envelope over, her hand trembling, Hyspana saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake surrounding a large letter _H_.

"Hurry up, girl!" shouted Aunt Venus from the kitchen. "What are you doing, checking for letter bombs?" She chuckled at her own joke.

Hyspana went back to the kitchen, still staring at her letter. She handed Aunt Venus the bill and the postcard, sat down, and slowly began to open the yellow envelope.

Aunt Venus ripped open the bill, snorted in disgust, and flipped over the postcard.

"Martin's ill," she informed Uncle Parker. "Ate a funny whelk…"

"Mum!" said Divinity suddenly. "Mum, Hyspana's got something!"

Hyspana was on the point of unfolding her letter, which was written on the same heavy parchment as the envelope, when it was jerked sharply out of her hand by Aunt Venus.

"That's _mine_!" said Hyspana, trying to snatch it back.

"Who'd be writing to you?" sneered Aunt Venus, shaking the letter open with one hand and glancing at it. Her face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights. And it didn't stop there. Within seconds it was the grayish white of old porridge.

"P-P-Parker!" she gasped.

Divinity tried to grab the letter to read it, but Aunt Venus held it high out of her reach. Uncle Parker took it curiously and read the first line. For a moment it looked as though he might faint. He clutched his throat and made a choking noise.

"Venus! Oh my goodness — Venus!"

They stared at each other, seeming to have forgotten that Hyspana and Divinity were still in the room. Divinity wasn't used to being ignored. She gave her mother a sharp tap on the head with her Smelting stick.

"I want to read that letter," she said loudly.

"_I _want to read it," said Hyspana furiously, "as it's _mine_."

"Get out, both of you," croaked Aunt Venus, stuffing the letter back inside its envelope.

Hyspana didn't move.

"I WANT MY LETTER!" she shouted.

"Let _me _see it!" demanded Divinity.

"OUT!" roared Aunt Venus, and she took both Hyspana and Divinity by the scruffs of their necks and threw them into the hall, slamming the kitchen door behind them. Hyspana and Divinity promptly had a furious but silent fight over who would listen at the keyhole; Divinity won, so Hyspana, her glasses dangling from one ear, lay flat on her stomach to listen at the crack between door and floor.

"Venus," Uncle Parker was saying in a quivering voice, "look at the address — how could they possibly know where she sleeps? You don't think they're watching the house?"

"Watching — spying — might be following us," muttered Aunt Venus wildly.

"But what should we do, Venus? Should we write back? Tell them we don't want —"

Hyspana could see Aunt Venus's shiny black shoes pacing up and down the kitchen.

"No," she said finally. "No, we'll ignore it. If they don't get an answer… Yes, that's best… we won't do anything…"

"But —"

"I'm not having one in the house, Parker! Didn't we swear when we took her in we'd stamp out that dangerous nonsense?"

That evening when she got back from work, Aunt Venus did something she'd never done before; she visited Hyspana in her cupboard.

"Where's my letter?" said Hyspana, the moment Aunt Venus had squeezed through the door. "Who's writing to me?"

"No one. It was addressed to you by mistake," said Aunt Venus shortly.

"I have burned it."

"It was _not _a mistake," said Hyspana angrily, "it had my cupboard on it."

"SILENCE!" yelled Aunt Venus, and a couple of spiders fell from the ceiling.

She took a few deep breaths and then forced her face into a smile, which looked quite painful.

"Er — yes, Hyspana — about this cupboard. Your uncle and I have been thinking… you're really getting a bit big for it… we think it might be nice if you moved into Divinity's second bedroom."

"Why?" said Hyspana.

"Don't ask questions!" snapped her aunt. "Take this stuff upstairs, now."

The Evans' house had four bedrooms: one for Aunt Venus and Uncle Parker, one for visitors (usually Aunt Venus's brother, Martin), one where Divinity slept, and one where Divinity kept all the toys and things that wouldn't fit into her first bedroom. It only took Hyspana one trip upstairs to move everything she owned from the cupboard to this room. She sat down on the bed and stared around her. Nearly everything in here was broken. The month-old video camera was lying on top of a small, working tank Divinity had once driven over the next door neighbor's dog; in the corner was Divinity's first-ever television set, which she'd put her foot through when her favorite program had been cancelled; there was a large birdcage, which had once held a parrot that Divinity had swapped at school for a real air rifle, which was up on a shelf with the end all bent because Divinity had sat on it. Other shelves were full of books. They were the only things in the room that looked as though they'd never been touched.

From downstairs came the sound of Divinity bawling at her mother, "I don't _want _her in there… I _need _that room… make her get out…"

Hyspana sighed and stretched out on the bed. Yesterday she'd have given anything to be up here. Today she'd rathis be back in her cupboard with that letter than up here without it.

Next morning at breakfast, everyone was rather quiet. Divinity was in shock. She'd screamed, whacked her father with her Smelting stick, been sick on purpose, kicked her mother, and thrown her tortoise through the greenhouse roof, and she still didn't have her room back. Hyspana was thinking about this time yesterday and bitterly wishing she'd opened the letter in the hall. Aunt Venus and Uncle Parker kept looking at each other darkly.

When the mail arrived, Aunt Venus, who seemed to be trying to be nice to Hyspana, made Divinity go and get it.

They heard her banging things with her Smelting stick all the way down the hall. Then she shouted, "There's another one! 'Miss. H. Evans, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive —'"

With a strangled cry, Aunt Venus leapt from her seat and ran down the hall, Hyspana right behind her. Aunt Venus had to wrestle Divinity to the ground to get the letter from her, which was made difficult by the fact that Hyspana had grabbed Aunt Venus around the neck from behind. After a minute of confused fighting, in which everyone got hit a lot by the Smelting stick, Aunt Venus straightened up, gasping for breath, with Hyspana's letter clutched in her hand.

"Go to your cupboard — I mean, your bedroom," she wheezed at Hyspana. "Divinity — go — just go."

Hyspana walked round and round her new room. Someone knew she had moved out of her cupboard and they seemed to know she hadn't received her first letter. Surely that meant they'd try again? And this time she'd make sure they didn't fail. She had a plan.

The repaired alarm clock rang at six o'clock the next morning. Hyspana turned it off quickly and dressed silently. She mustn't wake the Evans'. She stole downstairs without turning on any of the lights.

She was going to wait for the postman on the corner of Privet Drive and get the letters for number four first. Her heart hammered as she crept across the dark hall toward the front door —

"AAAAARRRGH!"

Hyspana leapt into the air; she'd trodden on something big and squashy on the doormat — something _alive_!

Lights clicked on upstairs and to her horror Hyspana realized that the big, squashy something had been her aunt's face. Aunt Venus had been lying at the foot of the front door in a sleeping bag, clearly making sure that Hyspana didn't do exactly what she'd been trying to do. She shouted at Hyspana for about half an hour and then told her to go and make a cup of tea. Hyspana shuffled miserably off into the kitchen and by the time she got back, the mail had arrived, right into Aunt Venus's lap. Hyspana could see three letters addressed in green ink.

"I want —" he began, but Aunt Venus was tearing the letters into pieces before her eyes.

Aunt Venus didn't go to work that day.

She stayed at home and nailed up the mail slot.

"See," she explained to Uncle Parker through a mouthful of nails, "if they can't _deliver _them they'll just give up."

"I'm not sure that'll work, Venus."

"Oh, these people's minds work in strange ways, Parker, they're not like you and me," said Aunt Venus, trying to knock in a nail with the piece of fruitcake Uncle Parker had just brought her.

On Friday, no less than twelve letters arrived for Hyspana. As they couldn't go through the mail slot they had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides, and a few even forced through the small window in the downstairs bathroom.

Aunt Venus stayed at home again. After burning all the letters, she got out a hammer and nails and boarded up the cracks around the front and back doors so no one could go out. She hummed "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" as she worked, and jumped at small noises.

On Saturday, things began to get out of hand. Twenty-four letters to Hyspana found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two-dozen eggs that their very confused milkman had handed Uncle Parker through the living room window. While Aunt Venus made furious telephone calls to the post office and the dairy trying to find someone to complain to, Uncle Parker shredded the letters in his food processor.

"Who on earth wants to talk to _you _this badly?" Divinity asked Hyspana in amazement.

On Sunday morning, Aunt Venus sat down at the breakfast table looking tired and rathis ill, but happy.

"No post on Sundays," she reminded them cheerfully as she spread marmalade on her newspapers, "no damn letters today —"

Something came whizzing down the kitchen cherney as she spoke and caught her sharply on the back of the head. Next moment, thirty or forty letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Evans' ducked, but Hyspana leapt into the air trying to catch one —

"Out! OUT!"

Aunt Venus seized Hyspana around the waist and threw her into the hall. When Uncle Parker and Divinity had run out with their arms over their faces, Aunt Venus slammed the door shut. They could hear the letters still streaming into the room, bouncing off the walls and floor.

"That does it," said Aunt Venus, trying to speak calmly but pulling great tufts out of her hair at the same time. "I want you all back here in five minutes ready to leave. We're going away. Just pack some clothes. No arguments!"

She looked so dangerous with half her hair in her hands that no one dared argue. Ten minutes later they had wrenched their way through the boarded-up doors and were in the car, speeding toward the highway. Divinity was sniffling in the back seat; her mother had hit her round the head for holding them up while she tried to pack her television, VCR, and computer in her sports bag.

They drove. And they drove. Even Uncle Parker didn't dare ask where they were going. Every now and then Aunt Venus would take a sharp turn and drive in the opposite direction for a while.

"Shake 'em off… shake 'em off," she would mutter whenever she did this.

They didn't stop to eat or drink all day. By nightfall Divinity was howling. She'd never had such a bad day in her life. She was hungry, she'd missed five television programs she'd wanted to see, and she'd never gone so long without playing some game or another on her computer.

Aunt Venus stopped at last outside a gloomy-looking hotel on the outskirts of a big city. Divinity and Hyspana shared a room with twin beds and damp, musty sheets. Divinity snored but Hyspana stayed awake, sitting on the windowsill, staring down at the lights of passing cars and wondering…

They ate stale cornflakes and cold tinned tomatoes on toast for breakfast the next day. They had just finished when the owner of the hotel came over to their table.

"'Scuse me, but is one of you Miss. H. Evans? Only I got about an 'undred of these at the front desk."

He held up a letter so they could read the green ink address:

_Miss. H. Evans_

_Room 17_

_Railview Hotel_

_Cokeworth_

Hyspana made a grab for the letter but Aunt Venus knocked her hand out of the way. The man stared.

"I'll take them," said Aunt Venus, standing up quickly and following him from the dining room.

"Wouldn't it be better just to go home, dear?" Uncle Parker suggested timidly, hours later, but Aunt Venus didn't seem to hear him.

Exactly what she was looking for, none of them knew. She drove them into the middle of a forest, got out, looked around, shook his head, got back in the car, and off they went again. The same thing happened in the middle of a plowed field, halfway across a suspension bridge, and at the top of a multilevel parking garage.

"Mummy's gone mad, hasn't she?" Divinity asked Uncle Parker dully late that afternoon.

Aunt Venus had parked at the coast, locked them all inside the car, and disappeared.

It started to rain. Great drops beat on the roof of the car. Divinity snivelled.

"It's Monday," she told her mother. "The Great Humberto's on tonight. I want to stay somewhere with a _television_."

Monday. This reminded Hyspana of something. If it _was _Monday — and you could usually count on Divinity to know the days the week, because of television — then tomorrow, Tuesday, was Hyspana's eleventh birthday.

Of course, her birthdays were never exactly fun — last year, the Evans' had given her a coat hanger and a pair of Aunt Venus's old socks.

Still, you weren't eleven every day.

Aunt Venus was back and she was smiling. She was also carrying a long, thin package and didn't answer Uncle Parker when he asked what she'd bought.

"Found the perfect place!" she said. "Come on! Everyone out!"

It was very cold outside the car. Aunt Venus was pointing at what looked like a large rock way out at sea. Perched on top of the rock was the most miserable little shack you could imagine. One thing was certain, there was no television in there.

"Storm forecast for tonight!" said Aunt Venus gleefully, clapping her hands togethis. "And this lady's kindly agreed to lend us her boat!"

A toothless old woman came ambling up to them, pointing, with a rather wicked grin, at an old rowboat bobbing in the iron-gray water below them.

"I've already got us some rations," said Aunt Venus, "so all aboard!"

It was freezing in the boat. Icy sea spray and rain crept down their necks and a chilly wind whipped their faces. After what seemed like hours they reached the rock, where Aunt Venus, slipping and sliding, led the way to the broken-down house.

The inside was horrible; it smelled strongly of seaweed, the wind whertled through the gaps in the wooden walls, and the fireplace was damp and empty. There were only two rooms.

Aunt Venus's rations turned out to be a bag of chips each and four bananas.

She tried to start a fire but the empty chip bags just smoked and shrivelled up.

"Could do with some of those letters now, eh?" she said cheerfully. She was in a very good mood. Obviously she thought nobody stood a chance of reaching them here in a storm to deliver mail. Hyspana privately agreed, though the thought didn't cheer her up at all.

As night fell, the promised storm blew up around them. Spray from the high waves splattered the walls of the hut and a fierce wind rattled the filthy windows. Uncle Parker found a few moldy blankets in the second room and made up a bed for Divinity on the moth-eaten sofa. He and Aunt Venus went off to the lumpy bed next door, and Hyspana was left to find the softest bit of floor she could and to curl up under the thinnest, most ragged blanket.

The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night went on. Hyspana couldn't sleep. She shivered and turned over, trying to get comfortable, her stomach rumbling with hunger. Divinity's snores were drowned by the low rolls of thunder that started near midnight. The lighted dial of Divinity's watch, which was dangling over the edge of the sofa on her fat wrist, told Hyspanas he'd be eleven in ten minutes' time. She lay and watched her birthday tick nearer, wondering if the Evans' would remember at all, wondering where the letter writer was now.

Five minutes to go. Hyspana heard something creak outside. She hoped the roof wasn't going to fall in, although she might be warmer if it did.

Four minutes to go. Maybe the house in Privet Drive would be so full of letters when they got back that she'd be able to steal one somehow.

Three minutes to go. Was that the sea, slapping hard on the rock like that? And (two minutes to go) what was that funny crunching noise? Was the rock crumbling into the sea?

One minute to go and she'd be eleven. Thirty seconds… twenty… ten… nine — maybe she'd wake Divinity up, just to annoy her — three… two… one…

BOOM.

The whole shack shivered and Hyspana sat bolt upright, staring at the door. Someone was outside, knocking to come in.

* * *

><p>okay, that's the third chapter done, thanks for reading and let me know what you think<p>

bekah xx


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